WHY THE CIA FUNDS ME AND OTHER NONSENSE

Turkish Daily News
July 24 2008

No, I don’t get any money from any foreign intelligence agency,
such as, most probably, the CIA. And with such a low dollar rate,
I am even not that interested

by Mustafa AKYOL

If there is one thing that the Kemalists never lack, that is
imagination. They can make up, and then believe in, all sorts of
fantasy. Their pundits have recently created a vast range of conspiracy
theories from the lunacy that "Islamist" Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan is in fact a crypto Jew who serves the Elders of Zion to the
more popular nonsense that the U.S. government aims at establishing a
"moderate Islamic republic" in Turkey.

I am used to seeing such bilge in the crude side of the Kemalist
camp, but these days even their most sophisticated representatives
seem to follow a similar line. My column neighbor, Yusuf Kanlı,
a most articulate and respected writer, surprised me by doing so
just two days ago. In his column titled "Muslim Democrats" he wrote,
"’Muslim democrats,’ some people on the payroll – or who were on the
payroll – of some foreign intelligence agencies… are conducting
psychological warfare against the patriot and Kemalist Turks through
a disinformation campaign in the media outlets."

Enemies united:

I often don’t take such broad accusations personally, but
Mr. Kanlı left me with no choice by explaining what these
foreign-intelligence-agency-paid misinformers do: "In this
psychological war, even Mustafa Kemal Ataturk was implicated with
terrorism and some insolent penslingers have started using the
‘Kemalist terrorism’ terminology to describe people who resist the
growing Islamofascist trends in this country."

Well, it was me who wrote a piece titled "Turkey meets ‘Kemalist
terror’" just two days before in order to explain the ideology of
the controversial Ergenekon gang. "Therefore," I said, "Mr. Kanlı
must be talking about me." So, let me say a few words.

Of course, accusations such as this — or that I am in fact a space
alien designed to look like a human in order to infiltrate the blue
planet — is impossible to disprove. I can’t get documents from
"foreign intelligence agencies" stating that they don’t really
pay me, right? I can only make a statement. So here it comes: No,
I don’t get any money from any foreign intelligence agency, such as,
most probably, the CIA. And with such a low dollar rate, I am even
not that interested.

I think the real question here is how Mr. Kanlı "knows" that Turkish
commentators like me are "on the payroll" of some secret and wicked
powers. The "knowledge" that lies behind this accusation is, actually,
a presumption that the Kemalist ideology has installed into the minds
of its believers. Since Kemalism became a state-ideology by wiping
off all political opposition in 1925, it has blamed all dissenters,
which were labeled as "internal enemies," to be the agents of "external
enemies." The Islamo-Kurdish revolt of that year was explained as a
"British conspiracy," although there was never ever any evidence
to support such a claim. Over the years, "the external enemies" who
supposedly finance and tutor the non-Kemalist groups (conservative
Muslims, Kurds, liberals, the democratic left) diversified by adding
on the United States, Armenians, "Zionists," Iraqi Kurds, Arabs,
the European Union or even individuals such as George Soros.

This line of thinking brings intellectual poverty on the
Kemalists. Instead of trying to understand their critics, countering
them with reason and inferring some self-criticism, they shut down
the debate by simply blaming them as "traitors." And when they feel
threatened by the democratic power of these "traitors," they call the
state powers (the military, the high judiciary, and even "deep state"
gangs like Ergenekon) to save "the Republic," which has become a
euphemism for oligarchy.

Yet Kemalism is a big tent and not all of its adherents are as crude
as the shall-we-gather-at-the-coup choir. The more cosmopolitan a
Kemalist becomes, the more his arguments against democracy become
nuanced. He can even abandon some aspects of the ideology, but as far
as he remains attached to its two main pillars — a strong distaste
toward conservative religion and an elitist contempt for popular
sovereignty — he has a place under the Ataturk sun.

Bekdil, Hitler, Marcus, etc.:

Which brings me to my other column neighbor, Burak Bekdil. His
stylish, sharp and witty pieces are full of oft-repeated but hardly
convincing arguments against the democratization of Turkey. At least
a dozen times, for example, he has reminded us that Hitler came to
power through popular vote. What we should infer from that must be
something thus: Hitler came to power by elections. So elections are
untrustworthy. So we don’t need to respect election results. Facts
such as that Hitler’s dictatorship was based on not election results
but that he had a paramilitary force (the SA) and that he wiped off
all political opposition by using violence, are, of course, not what
Mr. Bekdil reminds you.

Another beloved example of Mr. Bekdil is the "yes" vote the Turkish
people gave to the 1982 Constitution. "Did 92 percent of our
‘enlightened’ nation not vote for the 1980 coup, its Constitution
and leaders as untouchables," he was asking yesterday, as he has
done again at least a dozen times, in order to imply how dumb the
Turkish nation is. Yet he was carefully avoiding telling you that
the 1982 Constitution was also a ticket from military rule to free
elections. Had people said "no" to the constitution, the military
regime would probably be extended indefinitely.

Yesterday Mr. Bekdil was also telling us that Turkey needs "checks
and balances" against the Justice and Development Party, or AKP,
government, which is, on paper, an absolutely true statement. What
he was not telling us was that the country is now on the brink of
a judicial coup, not an act of "checks and balances." And while
he was bashing journalist Aliza Marcus for her co-authored piece
in The Washington Post, he was evoking the standard Kemalist line
of traitor-hunting. The "love affair" Ms. Marcus allegedly had with
the AKP, according to Mr. Bekdil, was the reincarnation of her "love
affair" with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK.

Another, and much better, recent piece in these pages (by H. Akın
Unver) was referring to Turkey’s "unevolved secularists." Alas,
I wonder if there is any "evolved secularist" around at all.

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